This Day in 1912 in The Record: Dec. 9, 1912

Monday, Dec. 9, 1912. Two columns away from Rev. Warren G. Partridge's blast in today's Record against lax law enforcement in Troy, Mayor Cornelius F. Burns uses a letter of thanks to another local minister to attack critics of city morality as sensation seekers.

Our reporter's interview with Partridge, the pastor of Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, was conducted following yesterday's sermon before the Women's Christian Temperance Union, portions of which can be found elsewhere in today's paper. In sermon and interview, Partridge denounced Troy as a "wide open" town where the police do nothing to enforce the laws forbidding saloons, movie theaters and other public amusements from operating on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath.

Similar charges were aired last week at a conference of the city Federation of Churches. At that conference, Rev. Adelbert P. Higley of First Presbyterian Church rose to say, "Troy is just as good, no better, no worse than other cities. I believe it is much better than some other cities."

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Mayor Burns has written a letter of thanks to Higley and forwarded a copy to our editors. In expressing his appreciation, the mayor reminds readers that Troy "has become a great manufacturing city. Its commercial importance is recognized, its specialties are known in every section of the globe, its patriotism, its charity and civic pride are second to none in the land.

"Its religious sentiment is evidenced by its churches, said to be seventy-five in number. Its charitable and helpful institutions existing by and through the benevolences of the people, and their government, can not be duplicated in any section of the world.

"I am personally very proud of Troy, and its management. I dislike to hear derogatory stories circulated or its reputation smirched. We bring immature men and women here to educate them; we surround them with every refining influence obtainable. We bestir ourselves to bring desirable people from all sections to our midst, to increase our population and wealth. We regulate traffic of all kinds as the law dictates."

Noting that Troy exempts church property from tax assessments, Burns complains that some pastors repay this benevolence with "baseless reports, violent slanders, extreme denunciation and a general impeachment of the standard of the morals of the community." These smears "come from those who should possess a Christian spirit and by their efforts try by religious teaching and moral suasion to turn the erring souls from their downward course, and not malign the whole community, as is frequently the case of those seeking sensationalism, rather than the work that it is presumed they are, or have been ordained to do."